Halladay focuses on team goals

Roy Halladay isn't thinking about windows or contracts. He isn't looking for more individual awards or redemption. He doesn't care if his fastball pops off the radar gun.

No, the 36-year-old right-handed starter is worried about only one thing: how to get an elusive World Series ring.

"Every year you realize that you are a little older and a little slower and the game is getting quicker and guys are getting younger," Halladay said on the opening day of spring training at the Phillies' facility in Clearwater, Fla. "I've felt very fortunate to have played as long as I've played. You don't take days for granted here. I don't think anybody does. So I've never really looked at it that way of what if the better days are behind me. For me, it's always looking forward to what's in front of you and what's ahead of you and (trying) to embrace that."

After a rocky 2012 that saw Halladay hindered by a right lat strain and a season-long case of back soreness -- not revealed until the Feb. 12 press conference -- the two-time Cy Young Award winner said that he feels good as the 2013 campaign gets under way.

"I feel like the things we've done this winter have made a big difference," Halladay said. "There is no such thing as a crystal ball, but I'm confident that if I can maintain the way I feel right now, that I'm going to be effective."

Halladay is entering the final guaranteed year of his contract, but if he pitches 225 innings this year and isn't on the disabled list when the season ends, a $20 million option for 2014 would be vested. He has been a player who has resisted change, picking Philadelphia as his landing spot during a December 2009 trade instead of going on the open market when he could have made a windfall as a free agent.

"I think all our dialogue right now has been, 'How do we get things going in the direction?'" Halladay said. "Really, that was my concern, I know it was their concern, and I'm not at all worried about next season. I really am not. I'm worried about this year and making the most of this year and then you go from there."

To go about it, Halladay changed his workout program to something less reliant on running and more sport-specific and intense.

"It really started at the end of last season when we sat down with the trainers, with the strength coaches, different doctors and coming up with a game plan, I knew what issues where, it was just a matter of, 'How do I solve them?' So, really, I felt like I had a plan. More than anything, that builds confidence when you feel like you have a plan, an approach, a way of attacking something and your confidence is going to grow. So I felt good about what we were doing."

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MLB Team Report - Philadelphia Phillies - NOTES, QUOTES

--C Carlos Ruiz issued another emotional apology Feb. 13 for receiving a 25-game suspension due to his unauthorized use of Adderall during the 2012 season. "Baseball has rules," Ruiz said. "When you make a mistake, you have to pay. I pay my 25 games. Like I said, I apologize to my organization, my teammates, my family, my fans."

--OF Domonic Brown is one of the Phillies players in need of a strong performance this spring. Brown is trying to win one of the starting corner outfield jobs after spending parts of three seasons on the major league roster, but he insists that he isn't feeling any extra pressure because of his situation.

--OF Delmon Young hadn't reported to camp before the first day of workouts for position players, but he wasn't expected to be available until midway through spring training for game action, according to GM Ruben Amaro Jr. Young, signed in the offseason to an incentive-laden contract, underwent right ankle surgery in November.

--1B Ryan Howard was among the early arrivals in Clearwater, showing no signs of a limp during his early workouts as he tries to move past the ruptured Achilles tendon injury that hampered him in 2012. "It feels good," Howard said.

--RHP Michael Stutes, who missed the majority of the 2012 season due to shoulder surgery, proclaimed he felt fine in the early days of camp. Stutes said that the clicking sound he heard in his right arm when he threw is gone. "Now that I felt the difference -- a free range of motion and nothing is catching now -- I realized that something was probably going on for a little while," Stutes said.

BY THE NUMBERS: 59 -- Players scheduled to be in the Phillies' big-league camp on the first day of full-team workouts.

QUOTE TO NOTE: "Call us old if you want to, that's fine if you want to sweep us under the rug, just don't be surprised. Don't be surprised." -- 1B Ryan Howard.